Redskins cornerback DeAngelo Hall doesn’t hesitate to be completely honest. He’ll blast the officials if he feels he’s been wronged -- even when he most certainly hasn’t. He’ll predict that he’ll try to hit an opposing injured quarterback where it’ll hurt the most, even though he sometimes disappears in games like that.

And when he feels like he sucks, that’s exactly what he’ll say.

“It’s frustrating, but I can’t point a finger at anybody but myself,” Hall said, via the Washington Times, after the Redskins overtime loss to the Cowboys. “The way I’m playing right now, they need to go cut me because I’m definitely not worth what I’m getting. It’s frustrating. Hopefully they see something in me and they bring me back next year, but the way things are going right now, I’m definitely not playing up to par.”

Reporters then asked if Hall felt like he was struggling throughout Sunday’s game.

"I feel like I had a good game up until that point,” said Hall, referring to the pass Dez Bryant caught on a third-and-15 that allowed the Cowboys to continue their game-winning drive. “But when you’re paying a guy the kind of money I’m making, you expect him to make that play. I would cut myself if I was in the front office."

Also, he said this on the Bryant play that went for 26 yards in which Bryant cut to the outside to catch the pass: “I slipped. Can’t slip. I’m the reason we lost the game. It’s frustrating. It’s tough to swallow. Second time in a row to Dallas, so definitely real pissed off at myself.”

For the record, Hall is in the third season of a six-year, $55 million contract. He most likely will NOT be cut this week.

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Dallas rolled over Seattle 23-13 on Sunday, but everything wasn't all roses for the Cowboys, as wide receiver Miles Austin suffered a(nother) hamstring injury. Austin injured his left hamstring in Week 2 and hurt the right one during the third quarter on Sunday.

According to a report from Fox Sports Southwest's Matt Mosely, Austin will miss two to four weeks with the hamstring injury, which sounds about right given Austin's not-quite-optimistic comments on Sunday.

Austin's struggled with the injury this year, and has just 28 catches and 403 receiving yards in six games, though he does have four touchdowns. On the heels of two-straight years playing all 16 games and topping 1,000 yards in each season, that has to be considered a disappointment for Dallas and Austin.

More disappointing will be if Austin misses the high end of the reported timeline; it'll mean Laurent Robinson and Dez Bryant have to step up in a big way.

Which may mean that Bryant stops returning kicks for Dallas -- Jerry Jones expressed concern that Bryant, who's also dealt with injuries this year, expressed concern with Dez returning punts for Dallas while the depth chart was so thinned out.

"I'm still concerned when we had him back there about his injury, especially now that Miles may be, or may not be, out a couple of games," Jones said, via FSS. "I don't know."

Just like the last time Jones spoke up about in-game Cowboys decision-making, Jason Garrett would be wise to heed the words of his boss. Of course, if Austin misses multiple games with the hamstring injury, it probably shouldn't require to make a common-sense point like that anyway.

Andy Reid was 12-0 in his career coming off the bye week -- and it seems impossible to believe he wasn’t doing something special during his team’s time off. He was asked about it this week, but he always discards the notion that he was doing anything out of the ordinary.

“You know, I get asked that every year, and I don’t think there’s any secret,” Reid said earlier this week. “You just do what you do. We’re going to practice just like we did last week and the week before that, and so on. So I don’t know if there’s any secret to it.”

But obviously, after the Eagles dominated the Cowboys 34-7 Sunday night, Reid is doing something right. Lost this season, among Vince Young’s Dream Team comment and the team’s 1-4 start, is that Reid is still a fine football man. Even if he’s never taken the team to the Super Bowl title, he’s one of the better coaches in the league.

The fans in Philadelphia want to see their team go all the way, and the Eagles have been so close so many times. With Philadelphia’s early-season failure this year, it was easy to hoist much of the blame on Reid, because he has such tight control over the roster and because many of the team’s offseason decisiosn seemed to clunk on arrival. But during their last two games, you’ve seen how good this team can be, how well they can play.

I don’t know what Reid did during the bye week, but his team looked like NFC title contenders Sunday night. LeSean McCoy dominated the Cowboys No. 1 rush defense, accumulating 185 yards and two touchdowns on 30 carries. The offensive line opened up enormous holes. Tight end Brent Celek made his triumphant return to the spotlight by catching seven passes for 94 yards and a score. And Michael Vick, who completed 21 of 28 passes for 278 yards and two touchdowns while rushing seven times for 50, looked absolutely awesome. In all, the Eagles gained 518 total yards, the most ever against a Cowboys squad.

“The biggest thing is to get everybody healthy off the bye week and to stay focused,” McCoy told NBC after the game. “With the losses, we weren’t focused with the turnovers and letting guys run for yards. So many things were going wrong. Coach talked about focus, to take care of your job and not worry about the next man.”

Remember a few weeks ago when everybody was bashing Reid for hiring former offensive line coach Juan Castilllo and the team’s installation of the Wide 9 defensive scheme? Well, it seemed to work wonders tonight, keeping Tony Romo from doing much of anything and rendering Dez Bryant and Jason Witten irrelevant.

The team looked fast and fit and refreshed, and the Cowboys never had a chance. If Reid has a secret about how to prepare his team during a bye week, he’s obviously not going to share it. But at 13-0, it’d be surprising if he didn’t know exactly what that secret is.

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Bradford's absence is official -- he's missing the game thanks to a high ankle sprain that he suffered in the loss to Green Bay during Week 6. And that means A.J. Feeley gets the nod under center for St. Louis.

"I’m definitely, I’m doing everything I can to play…whether we were playing in Dallas or in Alaska, I’m going to do everything I can to play every Sunday,” Bradford said Friday.

Indeed, it seemed as if Bradford would start as late as Thursday, but the injury obviously didn't warrant putting the face of their franchise at future risk by rolling him out Sunday.

Plus, it probably doesn't matter -- Bryant's statements about the Cowboys are correct in this case, Bradford or not. So for the Rams to hope and make anything out of this season going forward, they're better off allowing Bradford to get healthy and hoping the other NFC West teams stumble as their schedule gets easier.

Unless Dez Bryant decides to blow their cover by saying ridiculous things. Like, for instance, that the Cowboys are "unbeatable" and the "pros is much easier" than college football.

"I like to keep my personal goals to myself," Bryant said during a recent interview at the Dallas House of Blues, via the Dallas Morning News. "As far as the team, I like our chances. I feel like, it may sound crazy, I think we are unbeatable."

Yes, the obvious counterargument is that the Cowboys have already lost. Three times. But apparently it doesn't count in the L column if you beat yourself.

"I think the losses, we lost those games ourselves," Bryant continued. "I feel like once we get back in that meeting room and regroup, and we learn from our mistakes, the sky's the limit."

This is very, very true. The Cowboys don't have issues with the people that are on the field for them, insofar as athletic skill and raw talent is concerned. They're fielding a team that's capable -- on paper -- of winning the Super Bowl.

"I really think the pros is much easier," Bryant said. "The reason I say that is because in college I didn't see too much man, too much 1-on-1. I always got double-teamed and a lot of zone coverages. When I see that one-on-one in the league, my eyes get big. I start visualizing what I'm going to do after the play."

OK, real quickly: why is it that people can't delineate between statements that are "team-oriented" and "silly"? Because surely Bryant doesn't think NFL defensive backs are no good, and surely he understands he only gets a ton of one-on-one looks because there are other good receiving options on his team. Surely he gets that. Right?

Additionally, Choice is the one interviewing Bryant. So Bryant didn't look at TMZ, pound his chest and scream "we are UNBEATABLE!" -- he's just telling a teammate in front of a bunch of Cowboys fans (albeit with a camera rolling) that he thinks Dallas is really good.

The problem is those darn cameras. Dez needs to realize that they're usually running whenever he or someone on the Cowboys says anything.

NFL VP of Communications Greg Aiello confirmed to CBS Sports following the game that the NFL will look into the near-fight that went down, and I'd be pretty shocked if both coaches didn't get hit with some kind of fine. Though Harbaugh didn't do much that was noticeable on the video, he did admit following the game that he probably incited Schwartz' anger.

Schwartz, of course, chased Harbaugh down the field and had to be repeatedly pushed back from the crowd. No matter what Harbaugh did, it's hard to fathom that Schwartz behavior is remotely acceptable in the eyes of the league. And though Schwartz might have looked like the aggressor, the blame has to lie with Harbaugh on this one.

Looking ahead, this might not be a rivalry that dies quickly. Niners offensive lineman Anthony Davis, on his newly verified Twitter account, had a little trash talk of his own after the game.

"They talked s*** to us all week," Davis tweeted following the game. "We said nothin ... Came and kicked that a** ... its f***** football f*** classy.. Save classy for Mortons lol"

Steakhouse humor aside, it's worth mentioning Cliff Avril of the Lions saw Davis' tweet and pointed out that it was "real professional" -- Davis responded by pointing out that he "pancacked [Avril] on a passing play ... sooo uh just be quiet go home play with your kids."

So this shouldn't evolve into anything unpleasant in the near future at all!

What's fascinating about this whole thing is how people are defending both sides. Some folks think that Schwartz is an unhinged lunatic. Some think Harbaugh is an arrogant jerk. (Our own Mike Freeman noted on Twitter that Harbaugh's not making himself any friends around the league with his attitude.)

2. Speaking of Coaches ...You'll notice Sean Payton didn't make my top five. And he might not have even if he was healthy, but he certainly wouldn't be up there after the incident that took place on Sunday, when tight end Jimmy Graham came crashing into the sideline and blew up Payton's knee.

The Saints coach suffered a broken tibia and tore his the MCL in his left knee, which means he'll be knocked out of shape for quite a while.

"It's just one of those things, the play kind of got up on me quicker," Payton said Sunday. "I think the second part of the tackle seemed maybe all of a sudden. I mean, every once in a while you feel like you get pinned with the play and that's what happened."

Of course, Payton wasn't the only coach who was injured on Sunday in this game (think about that; seriously) -- Jimmy Lake, the Bucs defensive backs coach, tore his patellar tendon celebrating an interception celebrating, as Ryan says in the podcast above, Martin Gramatica style.

What I'm wondering is if Payton's injury might derail the Saints offense a little bit. Maybe that's a stretch, and he'll certainly have his hands all over the team's playcalling and management, but it doesn't sound like he'll be down on the field for a few weeks.

"I might have to be up in the press box for a few games," Payton said. "Because it’s a fracture, its different. If it’s the MCL you can have the brace, but the fracture on the outside means the weight-bearing part of it really changes."

Maybe it won't have any bearing -- with the Saints playing the Colts and Rams in the next two weeks, Drew Brees can probably manage the offense all by himself.2. A Boy Named JohnWith Washington getting two weeks to prepare for the Eagles, and Philly looking very much like a punch-drunk boxer practically begging for a knockout shot, it stood to reason that the Redskins could take advantage of the Eagles porous defense and pick up a critical division win.

The 'Skins quarterback threw four interceptions -- three to Kurt Coleman -- and registered a couple of terrible interceptions that should have been picks. This led to him getting benched for backup John Beck.

“Well number one—we needed a spark," Mike Shanahan said afterwards. "John has been practicing very well the past couple of weeks and with four turnovers there we thought it was time to make a change and give John an opportunity to show us what he could do."

(Ed. Note: Week 6 review will be up early Monday.)

Beck, who's so fancy/awesome he dressed like a gas-station attendant for his post-game presser, isn't locked into the starting role yet, though, as Shanny refused to name next week's starter immediately following the game.

"I would never announce that right after a game," Shanahan said of his decision on who he'll start. "I would announce that later on in the week. We'll make a decision after looking at the film."

That's all fine and well, but who didn't see this coming? Because if the Redskins leading the NFC East after five weeks was the least likely thing in the entire world, then Grossman eventually imploding was on the opposite scale of predictability. And now this is quickly shaping up to be the second rendition of the Donovan McNabb-Grossman fiasco from last year.

On the bright side, it's less expensive?

"I want to play," Beck said, via Dan Steinberg of the Washington Post. "I want to be the quarterback. But I’m not the one that makes that decision, it’s coach, and they’ll make the best decision for the team ... What’s gonna happen next, I don’t know. But I’ll just do everything I can to be prepared if my number is called."

If it's me, I roll the dice with Beck, who seemed to at least provide a little spark to the team when he came on the field. It's not like he's been good this year, the Redskins defense has just kept Washington in games. And Grossman's now thrown three or more interceptions in seven of his 45 career starts. Which means 15 percent of the time that you put Grossman under center, there's a 15-percent chance he's going to hand the ball to the opposing defense multiple times.

3. Maybe Romo's Not the Only Choker?For what feels like the fourth or fifth week this season, it's time to question Jason Garrett's playcalling for Dallas. With the game tied at 13 all and the Cowboys in the red zone, Garrett called a third-down shovel pass despite Dez Bryant sitting in single coverage.

The result was predictably predictable: the shovel pass didn't work and the Cowboys kicked a field goal to go up 16-13. Then, after forcing the Patriots to punt, Dallas ran three straight times (for negative-five yards) and the result was even more predictable: Dallas punted back to Tom Brady, giving him the ball down three points with 2:31 left on the clock.

If you've followed football at all for the last few years, you've probably already figured out what happened. Tom Brady did what Tom Brady does, which is carve up a defense en route to just another routine comeback/last-minute win.

By the time he hit Aaron Hernandez in the end zone for the go-ahead touchdown, Dallas had just 22 seconds remaining on the clock to move the ball far enough down the field to get a shot at a Hail Mary, which Tony Romo threw out of bounds.

On that last drive, by the way, Romo completed two passes for 31 yards. Throw those passes on the previous series and we're talking about a signature win for the Cowboys, against the best team in the other conference at their place.

Instead, we're left to wonder why Garrett continually plays, as my colleague Pete Prisco wrote, not to lose, instead of utilizing the weapons he has on offense in the proper way. And by "we" I mean "me and Jerry Jones."

"You'll always second-guess whether or not we should have tried to run a little offense down there instead of running it three times," Jones said after the game, per our Pats Rapid Reporter Greg Bedard. "We went conservative rather than try to get some points and it bit us."

Jones said that doing so in a regular-season game was acceptable, but it's not the type of thing that he'd like to see in the playoffs. Of course, it's hard to imagine the Cowboys making the playoffs if they can't figure out how to turn trips to the red zone into more than three points a pop.

4. Bollers and Pryors OH MYMany a pundit's willing to point out that the Oakland Raiders, while a half-game back of the Chargers, are the best AFC West team through the first six weeks of the season.

“I’m not going to let this football team blink," coach Hue Jackson said Sunday. "We’ll miss Jason for a little while. I have no idea how long it will take [for him to recover]. We’ll see as we go. I know obviously he won’t be here next week. We’ll continue to press forward and get better."

That's the optimistic point of view. The pessimistic? Kyle Boller, Terrelle Pryor and Shane Lechler are now the top-three quarterbacks on Oakland's depth chart. Yikes.

So Oakland has a couple of options going forward. One, roll with Boller. (Again, yikes.) Two, let Darren McFadden carry the ball 50 times a game. (Not terrible, but it could cause some long-term issues in terms of his health.) Three, go out and get another quarterback.

A couple of names spring to mind immediately: Kyle Orton, Donovan McNabb, David Garrard and Carson Palmer. Garrard makes sense because he's openly said he wants to play for a contender and the Raiders, at 4-2, certainly fit the bill.

Orton, McNabb and Palmer seem like longer shots as trade possibilities, but the Raiders have about 36 hours to make a deal, and it's reasonable that the Broncos, Vikings and Bengals would be interested in getting something back for guys that are either going to ride pine the rest of the year or won't bother showing up.

5. Don't Forget the Defense

In this, the year of ridiculously silly offensive outputs in the NFL, it's easy to just gawk at high-powered offensive teams and assume they will end up winning the most games and doing the most damage in the postseason.

But we need to recognize the Ravens for the dirty work they're doing on the defensive side of the ball, suppressed their league-leading points-allowed total to 71 Sunday after casually shut down Houston in a 29-14 victory. Baltimore held 2010 rushing champ Arian Foster to just 49 yards on 15 carries, and limited Matt Schaub to 220 yards and a touchdown in a dominant defensive performance that should make some people take notice.

Ryan and I debated this audio-style, but I think there's a legitimate argument that the Ravens are the best team in the AFC and can contend for the best team in the NFL. Clearly -- quite clearly -- the Packers are the cream of the crop at the moment.

But anyone in the NFL can score these days. Few teams can stop the opposition from scoring. With Haloti Ngata serving as the lynchpin for the defensive line and wrecking havoc on opponents' offensive lines, and with a secondary that's surprising this year, and with Ray Lewis playing rejuvenated ball, the Ravens can do that.

They're lacking in offensive consistency more so than a lot of other teams around the league -- Joe Flacco alternating between awesome and terrible this season is pretty terrifying if you're a Baltimore fan -- but Ray Rice is so good right now that he can carry the Ravens when Flacco's struggling.

And if Rice isn't up for the task, the defense isn't afraid to take over either. Which separates the Ravens from most everyone else in the league.

6. Madden Up to His Old Curses AgainWhat the hell is going on in Cleveland? Because, one, the Browns aren't winning, so that's a problem. And two, Peyton Hillis has some serious drama surrounding him these days.

We've detailed the drama before (numerous times, actually), but Sunday took things to a whole new level. For starters, Hillis rushed just six times for 14 yards and then left with a hamstring injury, pulling up lame after taking a second-quarter screen pass from Colt McCoy only to have it negated by an illegal shift penalty.

After halftime, Hillis returned and appeared to be out for the game. This is fine, if it's because of injury. Except Hillis returned to the game ... and didn't get any carries. He blocked for McCoy and was on the field, but didn't rush the ball at all.

The Browns weren't exactly ground heavy during the game -- Montario Hardesty only had 11 carries for a meager 35 yards -- and McCoy ended up throwing 45 times (his lowest passing-attempt total on the year is now 32, which is also a bit disconcerting), but to see Hillis hurt but maybe not hurt enough to sit out the rest of the game especially after a controversial injury earlier in the year, well, let's just say that something ain't stirring the Kool-Aid in Cleveland.

He's not the guy refusing to block defenders, and he's not the guy allowing other teams to score 20-plus points in the second halves of games. But it's understandable that some of the players on the team might be a little interested in seeing what Ponder, who at least looked more, um, energetic than McNabb, can do.

"I'm not a coach, but this team definitely could use a spark wherever that may come from," wide receiver Percy Harvin said.

Again, McNabb hasn't been that bad. But the Vikes are 1-5, going nowhere in (arguably) the toughest division in football and need to find out if Ponder's their guy for the long term.

Because at this rate, they'll have another pretty critical decision about some talented young quarterbacks at the top of the 2012 draft as well.

For the Bears part, lets give credit to Mike Martz and Lovie Smith for learning that if you actually give Jay Cutler help to block pass rushers, you can produce offensively.

Except they learned this last year, too. Remember how the Bears stunk and Cutler looked like a candidate for serious brain damage through the first few weeks in 2010? And then the Bears started running the ball more and protecting Cutler? Yeah, maybe next year they'll remember before they're a quarter of the season in.

8. Down South in ... Tampa Bay?The Saints were supposed to blow out the LeGarrette Blount-less Buccaneers this weekend and the Panthers were supposed to upset the Falcons in the Georgia Dome. And then I was going to spend a large chunk of this column talking about the Panthers secretly being the second-best team in the NFC South.

If you missed it, lemme fill you on why the Panthers lost: their defense is terrible. It's not bad coaching and it's not to mean to the guys in the lineup, but the best way for Tiki Barber to revive his career would be to just try and get a tryout with whoever's playing the Panthers in the coming week, because there's a decent chance he could scamper for a buck fifty against that fishnet of a rushing defense.

They'll get better in the future and there's no reason to question Ron Rivera's capability as a defensive coach, but if you can run the ball, you can kill the Panthers. After Cam Newton threw a terrible pick to defensive lineman Corey Peters, the Falcons got the ball up a touchdown with six minutes left to play. Eight plays later -- seven of them running -- they were up 14 points.

Everyone knew they were going to run and there still wasn't any way for Carolina to stop it. New Orleans is a different deal, though, because Blount's absence meant the Bucs would struggle (in their wins thus far, he'd done well, and in their losses he hadn't; it's science!). Instead, Earnest Graham piled up 109 rushing yards on 17 carries, Josh Freeman got loose with Arrelious Benn and the Saints found themselves in a 20-10 halftime hole that they couldn't ever climb out of.

In short, a motivated Tampa Bay team showed up, created turnovers and completely flipped our perspective on the NFC South.

9. Bungle in the JungleThe Ravens, as noted above, are the class of the AFC North. And the Steelers are coming off a second-straight win in which their defense prevailed and Rashard Mendenhall and the running game looked good.

Dalton's not lighting up the statistical sheet, per se, as he's averaging just 218.5 passing yards per game, and he's only found the end zone seven times. But four of those have been to fellow rook Green, and -- I'm as surprised to be writing this as you are reading it -- Marvin Lewis was write about his offense getting an upgrade during the offseason.

And the Bengals are benefiting from a soft schedule; they could realistically be undefeated, considering that their two losses were by a combined seven points. Of course, it doesn't hurt that they have the second-best defense in the league, allowing just 278.5 yards per game. That defense has

The schedule gets harder down the road -- multiple matchups with both Baltimore and Pittsburgh loom -- but there are four more games left where the Bengals will either be favored or basically a pick 'em. The idea that this team could win eight games as recently as September was, well, not there. The four they have now is probably what they'd have topped out in most preseason projections.

And now they're a reasonable contender for a Wild-Card berth if a few things go their way in the rest of their division matchups.

10. Things to Do In Denver on Your ByeIt's fascinating to me that a team like the Broncos could, somehow, manage to create a ton of noise about their team. On their bye week. Without really talking about Tim Tebow.

I mean, there was some Tebow talk this week, of course, but it wasn't out of control. Charley Casserly reported that the Broncos won't change their offense much for Tebow, and that's probably a good thing and/or not that surprising, since this is a John Fox offense.

Kyle Orton's situation is a little more interesting. He'll also be a free agent after this year, and one would think that he'd LOVE to get out of town since a) the coaches yanked him in Week 5 for Tebow despite acting like Tebow's worse than Brady Quinn, b) he'll be a free agent in the offseason and c) he's more reviled by the fans around Mile High than Carmelo Anthony during his "trade me to New York or else" run last year.

But the Broncos issued a statement on Sunday night denying rumors that Orton wanted a trade, so apparently he's content hanging around and playing -- ahem -- nursemaid to Tebow. Or he thinks the experiment will fail miserably and he'll be starting in a couple weeks anyway.

Regardless, Denver, you're 1-4. Spend the bye week getting better, not drawing attention to yourselves when you're not playing please.

Muffed PuntsLeftovers from Sunday's action ...... Shane Lechler's first career pass attempt also produced his first career touchdown pass, when the Raiders faked a field goal in the third quarter against the Browns. Oddly enough, Lechler was the emergency quarterback, set to replace Kyle Boller who replaced the injured Jason Campbell.... No one will talk about it because they won and because of Handshake Gate, but Jim Harbaugh threw a challenge flag on a scoring play. Huge gaffe, since those are all automatically reviewed. It cost him an unsportsmanlike conduct delay of game penalty.... Drew Brees became the first quarterback in NFL history to post four-straight games of 350 or more yards passing. ... Packers are now just the seventh defending Super Bowl champ to start the next season 6-0.

This one might seem meaningless ... unless you happen to be a Grateful Dead fan and recognize the lyrics to "West L.A. Fadeaway." In which case you, like me, are clearly one of the first people to realize that Irsay's moving the Colts to Los Angeles. Who didn't see that coming?GIF O' THE WEEKBig ups to @Jose3030 for pulling this clip of LeSean McCoy pulling an aggressive version of the Pillsbury doughboy poke on Eagles coach Andy Reid. There's so much that's perfect about it, from Reid's stomach jiggling to Reid's head snapping back to Reid being totally unprepared for the punch, to McCoy later tweeting an apology for doing it.

Hot Seat Tracker

Jack Del Rio -- He wasn't supposed to beat the Steelers, in Pittsburgh. And he didn't. But the Jaguars showed some life. Still hard to imagine he survives this season though.

Jim Caldwell -- In the words of the Talking Heads, stiiiiiiiiiiiiillllll waiiiiiiting ...

Tony Sparano -- He only lasts through 2012 if Steve Ross is waiting out Jon Gruden.

Steve Spagnuolo -- Another guy who wasn't supposed to win Sunday, and he's been ravaged by injuries. But man, how did we all think they'd win the division?

Ken Wisenhunt -- He's got the Cards practicing on their off day during their bye week. Might be feeling some pressure.

Chasing Andrew LuckYou'll notice a shifting of the odds this week -- we're no longer accepting wagers that return any money to you. Mainly because there are just too many crappy teams in the NFL right now.

Colts (-500): The Jaguars and Panthers sandwich their Week 11 bye, and besides a Week 17 date at Jacksonville, well, those are the only games that even remotely look winnable right now.Dolphins (-350): Their schedule is also quite bleak. At least their fans are happy?Rams (-250): Al Harris is one of their starting cornerbacks. This is not 2001.Broncos (-225): They're doing everything in their power to deal away anyone with any talent. And this is different than the Josh McDaniels era how?Vikings (-125): Minny still has Adrian Peterson? Guh that Bears game was depressing.

MVP WatchPretty clearly, there's only one choice: Aaron Rodgers. Guy's doing everything he did down the stretch in 2010 but now it's being spread out over the course of a regular season. If he keeps this up, the Packers will have as many losses as there are people who don't pencil his name in for the top MVP vote.

That's not entirely accurate. After all, Ryan's done a pretty damn good job with the Cowboys defense this year. Dallas ranks fourth overall in yards allowed, first in rushing yards allowed, 14th in passing yards allowed, although the Cowboys are giving up 25.2 points per game, 23rd in the league.

And I suppose the Welker matchup is a different animal than the Megatron matchup. That's not to denigrate Welker's ability, because he's certainly shown this year that he's not just a between-the-hashmarks wideout. He's been fantastic, and his leading the NFL in receiving yards isn't a fluke.

Still, it's smart of Ryan to keep quiet on this one, even if it's in a joking manner.

And it means he's learned a pretty good lesson here: don't give opposing wide receivers free motivation to try and torch your defense. Especially when they're better than the guys on your roster.

Rookie running back DeMarco Murray is the process of clearing his name after getting caught in the same snafu during camp. “One has been cleared, and one is pending,” a source said. “You have to have your driver's license with you or some type of government ID. They didn’t have their IDs. Dez has been cleared. That is my understanding, and the other [Murray] is in the process of being cleared.”

It gets better: Bryant practiced throughout the Cowboys' bye week and should be ready to go when the team faces New England on Sunday. Also ready to go: quarterback Tony Romo, who will take a pain-killing shot and wear a Kevlar vest to protect a broken rib.

This Sunday, The Dallas Cowboys look will travel to Gillette Stadium to square off against the New England Patriots. Join Jason Horowitz and NFL.com's Pat Kirwan as they go inside the numbers to break down this matchup.

"I'm feeling better," Romo said, according to the Dallas Morning News. "Every week that goes by gets better and better. Hopefully in about a couple of weeks it'll be back to normal. Until then we have to do some little things to get over it."

“My granddad taught me when I was younger if you don’t have anything good to say don’t say anything at all," Witten said during an appearance on KTCK in Dallas (via SportsRadioInterviews.com). "I probably shouldn’t say anything. I don’t get that one. I really don’t. Chris has been a good player for a long time. To get to that point I don’t see why that came up. Hey look you can’t worry about that. Trust me. I know Tony doesn’t. That doesn’t affect him at all. It’s disappointing to see in some ways, but hey look it is part of the game and Chris has been a great player in this league for a long time. It’s disappointing to see him say that. That’s part of it.”

If Witten didn't get that, we wonder if he's seen this from a few years ago:

Witten does say "We’ve hung out a few times and been to the Pro Bowl a couple of times together. He’s a nice guy and has a funny personality." But clearly, they have different ideas of what constitutes funny.